Bill of Materials

Comparing the total cost of the Resilience Rover, produced by the team, with the one of the JPL open-source rover, a higher cost efficiency in the Resilience Rover can be clearly observed.

Of course, however, the JPL rover includes an active steering and propelling system which, at this stage, Resilience does not. By doing so the cost of the JPL rover obviously increases compared to that of Resilience. However, the team believes that adding motors for propulsion and corner steering will not cause a drastic increase in cost. Of course, the total cost will increase but predictions state that the £150 mark will not be surpassed. By doing so the Resilience design, once upgraded to a driverless vehicle, will still be more cost-efficient than the JPL open-source rover.

Furthermore, if more time would be allowed for development, the team would design custom linear actuators hence further reducing cost while increasing performance. By increasing actuator travel and changing the internal components layout, hence changing the entire shape of the motors, the team would not only reduce cost, but will also increase the suitability, and hence performance, of these components. The actuators selected, even if the smallest available in the market, are still too big for the application and their layout and shape is not best suited to a rover application. By implementing actuators, purposely designed for the rover, these inefficiencies will be removed, and an overall improved design will be produced.

Finally, the redesign and upgrade will bring the cost of the Resilience Rover to around £150 (predicted) while also allowing for actuator repositioning and overall better performance. For these reasons the team believes their design, better tackles, both in performance and cost, the challenge issued.

JPL Open-Source Rover – Bill of Materials